Odd Man Out 11

Cripes! Or, at any rate, a cripe and a half! Here it is after 9:30 at night, and your narrator has not yet fashioned this Tuesday's Odd Man Out bamboozelry. For shame, they all rose up and spoke as one. I will not go so far as to say one what, but the censure is duly quoted.

If, by the eleventh time around, you are still unsure of what this game is about or how it is played, I will be happy to provide this link. You're welcome.

Now, let the games begin! Then, let's ignore them to play a little Odd Man Out. Here they come.

Group 1

yellow jacket
hornet
bee
wasp

Group 2

Frankenstein
Godzilla
Swamp Thing
Dracula

Group 3

Queen Anne's War
The French and Indian War
The War of 1812
The Mexican War

Group 4

Robert Shaw in Jaws
Robert Shaw in The Battle of the Bulge
Robert Shaw in From Russia with Love
Robert Shaw in A Man for All Seasons

Group 5

Ferdinand Morton
Stephen King
Salvatore Bonpensiero
The guy who repossesses your car when you stop making payments

And now, comes the part that those who have simply given up for good, most look forward to or, rather, least loathe: the space-waster!

A man noticed his very nervous neighbor had been gone for a while, but there was no activity around his house indicating a sale or a new owner.

Finally, the jumpy fellow came back home. He explained to the man that he had gone on a safari to help him get over his nervousness.

"Of course it was a photographic safari," the neighbor told him. "Guns really make me nervous. Still my analyst thought that exposure to the wild animals might help me put things in perspective and calm me down."

"Did it work?" the man asked his neighbor.

"Well, I don't know. It's still too early to tell."

"So, did you see anything really scary?"

"I'll say!" the neighbor volunteered. "Once, I was trying to get a picture of an elephant in the distance, when, all of a sudden, this big, fierce tiger jumps out of the bushes, 'ROAR!' Um...I pooped my pants."

"Well, hell," the man said, "I guess I'd poop my pants if a big old tiger jumped out at me."

"No," the neighbor said, "I mean just now, when I said, 'ROAR!"

There, now that wasn't so bad, was it? It wasn't so good, but that is not what I asked you. Fine, it's time for the A part of this Q&A.

Group 1

yellow jacket
hornet
bee
wasp

The odd man out is "c," by which I mean "bee." A bee is a bee. The other three are wasps. Not the same species. Go look it up in Grimbly's Encyclopedia of Things that Sting, if you must.

Group 2

Frankenstein
Godzilla
Swamp Thing
Dracula

The odd man out is Frankenstein. Frankenstein (young or old) is not the name of the monster, but of the scientist who created it. The other three are the actual Christian names of the respective monsters.

Group 3

Queen Anne's War
The French and Indian War
The War of 1812
The Mexican War

The odd man out is the Mexican War. It was the only one of the four American wars that was not part of a greater global conflict. Queen Anne's War was part of the War of the Spanish Succession, mostly fought in Europe .What we call the French and Indian War was part of the Seven Years War, which, while fought chiefly in Europe, also spilled into Asia. The War of 1812 was an adjunct to the Napoleonic Wars, in which, yes, we helped a brutal dictator fight a democracy.

Group 4

Robert Shaw in Jaws
Robert Shaw in The Battle of the Bulge
Robert Shaw in From Russia with Love
Robert Shaw in A Man for All Seasons

There are either of two correct answers, but, to be correct, they must be linked to the proper explanation. On one hand the odd man out is Jaws, because that is the only one of the four where Shaw was not the villain. On the other hand, the odd man out is A Man for All Seasons, which is the only one of the four where Shaw's character was not killed.

Group 5

Ferdinand Morton
Stephen King
Salvatore Bonpensiero
The guy who repossesses your car when you stop making payments

The Odd Man Out is Stephen King, who does not, as far as we know, have a vaginal nickname, unlike musician, "Jellyroll" Morton, Sopranos crony-turned-fink, "Pussy" Bonpensiero, or the fellow who is known in some urban slang as "the snatch man."

Special Extra-Credit Question Having Nothing to do with Oddities or Outwardness

In a team sport, there was an athlete who was the undisputed best at his position throughout one decade. Then, in the succeeding decade, there was another athlete who was the best at the same position. The odd thing is that both athletes' last names phonetically mean the same thing in two different languages. Which two guys am I talking about? If you know the answer, send me a private message. I'll clue the others in eventually.

Get this one right, and your narrator will conveniently forget about the botch you made of the five OMO questions. Such a deal!

Sources

Wikipedia

Grimbly's Encyclopedia of Things that Sting

No, not really